In the interest of providing an update (and one hopes, closure) to this story, we’ll point out that Michael Kay addressed the Phil Mushnick situation on the air again yesterday, comparing Mushnick’s discussion of Dave Winfield in his column to the tape of his own discussion about the Hall of Famer from his radio show.
The Big Lead provides both analyses side-by-side, and though they do both make the same point about how Winfield is better on the radio than he is on TV, we knew already that they did. Judge for yourself if you’d like, though we suppose there’s really no way of knowing whether Kay arrived at his opinion independently (it’s not like it’s such a sophisticated piece of analysis that two members of the media couldn’t have come up with it on their own), whether Kay had read Mushnick’s column and it “strengthened a thought he’d independently formed about Winfield,” as the Big Lead suggests, or whether he flat out repeated Mushnick’s opinion as his own, as Mushnick accuses him of doing.
Is this all much ado about very little, if not nothing? Sure. Of course, Mushnick’s original “scold” was just a couple of lines in the Post, and Kay’s reaction (as well as Mushnick’s reaction to that reaction) are what really blew the whole thing out of proportion. Kay even seems to realize this, saying, “I almost feel embarrassed that I got that upset.”
The real loser here: Dave Winfield, whose skills as a TV analyst get insulted every time this story gets extended.